VIA EPIA M10000 Review Comments

[rampy]

Here's where you can comment on or ask questions regarding the VIA EPIA M10000 Review

[Anonymous]

Hi, Would a pci slot-based AIW 16MB(or better) be as good as the onboard vid for DVD playback..? Thanks for the review and nice site :)

[Bond]

I've recently build a similar system to the one you have in this review.

Epia M10000
Hauppauge PVR-150
512MB Ram
WinXP

I've been running GBPVR which has been great except that it is painfully slow to react in the menus and guide. Does the other software (SageTV or Beyond) have less demand on the system or is this just something that me and my weak processor have to live with?

If so, do different versions of those programs have different loads?

Thanks

[turajb]

Bond:

You are most likely running an older version of GBPVR v0.95.16.  The menus are painfully slow in that version,  If you upgrade to the new version of GBPVR v0.96.8 you will see much faster menu response times, among many other tweaks/fixes.

Anonymous:

If you are looking to purchase a Mini-ITX board, I would suggest going with one that uses the CN400 chipset.  This is supposed to provide better video performance.  The M10000 uses the older CLE266 chipset, which does not support MPEG4.

In case this helps, my PVR has the following hardware:

Via Epia SP1300
1 Gig Transcend DDR400 RAM
100 Gig Maxor IDE Hard Drive (for OS)
500 Gig Hitachi IDE Hard Drive (for PVR data)
Hauppauge PVR500
16X Samsung DVD +/- RW IDE Drive

And these software/drivers:

Via Epia Bios v1.06 (which is the BETA1 release for Linux users, to prevent the DMA lockups)
Windows 2000 w/SP4 (fully patched) [will be upgraded to XP Pro shortly - just need to install it]
GBPVR v0.96.8
Hauppauge PVR500 drivers v2.0.24.23025 (from shspvr.com site)
Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder v5.0.1031(from the ACE Mega CodecS Pack 6.03 - Professional Edition @ www.free-codecs.com)
Via Epia Video Driver v16.14.10.188 (from via.com.tw site)

Playback is nearly flawless, without lockups, with the onboard video.  GBPVR is set to 'Overlay Manager' at the give time, until I do the XP upgrade.  Output is done using the Epia SP's Svideo to my LCD TV.  Video card is set to 1024x768, 32 bit color @ 60Hz.

The following URL may also be of assistance:
http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=1603

I hope this helps...

[Bond]

I do have GBPVR 96.08 installed, It just seems to be pretty demanding on the little Epia.

If anyone has a similar setup using either Sage or Beyond TV please let me know how well it functions